


What We Make

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Background Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, War of Wrath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26876566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: The rest of their family is gone.Finarfin cannot make swords, for the price of the King doing so would be too high. Nerdanel and Mahtan will not, for their grief is too heavy and the Valar’s ban lies on them.Findis and Faniel are Princesses of the Noldor too, and even if they cannot fight like Lalwen, they can forge swords in preparation for a battle they can only hope will come.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28
Collections: Finwëan Ladies Week 2020





	What We Make

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Finwean Ladies Week, Day 2, Findis & Irimë (with added Faniel, because she’s my fav).

1.

They begin one day a hundred years after the rest of their people have left.

“Lalwendë is gone,” Findis says, looking out the window at lands that had never been lit so brightly or so harshly.

They both know this. They have known this since the day Lalwen left Faniel on the shores, one going with her older brother and the other following her youngest brother back to the city they had grown up in.

“Yes,” Faniel says.

She knows too that Findis is not content with this. She is not either, nor is she content with the Valar’s response to the scant news that has drifted back to these lands about what has occurred. Argon’s and Elenwë’s deaths had sent Anairë from the city, and Indis into mourning that had not yet broken. But it had brought Findis back to Finarfin and Faniel, rage in her eyes as she reported that the only kindness Manwë would grant the Noldor was an eagle to aid Fingon’s quest.

“They will not let Nerdanel or Mahtan make swords, even though we all know the armies will need them one day,” Findis continues.

It is folly to think that either Nerdanel or Mahtan would wish to arm more rebellions, when their grief held both captive, and yet that is what the Valar fear.

“They have not banned us from such,” Faniel says.

The sisters smile at each other. Nerdanel had not wished to go to Formenos in the aftermath, and had especially not wished to keep Fëanor’s notes on sword-making.

Those had found their way to Faniel’s rooms.

“Do you remember how to start his forges?” Faniel asks, pulling the notes from the shelves.

There is no need to ask who she speaks of.

“How could I forget?” Findis says in return, fiddling with a bracelet of rubies that Fëanor had given her once. “Do you still have the key to Náro’s store rooms?”

“Arafinwë knows better than to ask for it,” Faniel says and smiles sharply, pulling it from her pocket.

“We’ll make his first.”

They nod at each other, and hurry from the rooms towards the forges their father had placed in the palace in an attempt to kept Fëanor close as a child.

2.

Finarfin brings them the news one day that Lalwen is dead, and Fingolfin as well. “Despair,” he says with it written across his own face, “drove Nolofinwë to attack Morgoth on his own.”

The Valar still refuse to let any of those in Valinor leave to aid those in Beleriand.

Findis wants to return to Ingwë’s palace and their mother’s side at the news, grief written across her face and the same spirit of anger that led their half-brother to do such great and horrific deeds shining bright within her. She wants to scream at Manwë, to ask him why he has always had so much pity for his brother and none for her siblings, to scrape her fingers down his face and see if he will bleed like Lalwen doubtless did before her death, never content to let others face danger without her.

Instead she turns again to their works, raising a hammer few would believe her capable of holding and pounding out the metal. There is no gain to be had in screaming at the Valar, for they will not bend to words. 

Finarfin could forbid them such, but when Faniel looks at him, he only nods. There is no reason for them to pretend that they are any less angry than their three dead siblings. They are simply biding their time until they can win revenge and aid.

It is as much approval as the King of the Noldor can give them in the current circumstances, and Faniel clings to it during the days and nights to follow as they continue to make swords and arrows in secret, an armory greater than even those Fëanor had made.

It does not help their grief, but it does give them something to focus on, some hope for a future that some days seems like it will never come.

3.

Then there is a boy there. 

“Turukáno’s grandson,” he says, and Faniel sees both Findis’ and Finarfin’s faces drop at his confirmation of the latest rumors that the rest of their family has fallen to death or oath. Maedhros and Maglor still live, and Galadriel, but the rest are gone. 

It is hard to believe that their house, once the most numerous in all of Valinor, has been reduced to this. They do not ask Eärendil, for his attention has already been called to the Valar, but they all know that if Turgon has fallen, Findis’ son has fallen near him. 

‘Idril could have told us,’ Faniel thinks, ‘if only the Valar would have let her speak.’ But Idril’s husband had needed healing, and perhaps Idril would not have wished to speak of the dead to those who had not left. 

Eärendil has one of Fëanor’s Silmarils, and that is something they will have to deal with later, a problem they will have to find a fix for so that their half-brother and nephews are at least doomed to the Halls and not the void. None of them can bear the thought of that, or indeed the thought of their father doubtless trying to follow Fëanor to the void. 

But for now the Silmaril makes the Valar bend, and Faniel and Findis have had Fëanor’s forge and their family’s grief for centuries fueling them to greater heights. Grief, after all, has always been the mark of their family’s greatest works. 

There is a sword for Finarfin, the one they have worked and reworked for years, desperate for him to not sail to doom as well. One for Ingwion as well, the cousin they will not let die either. 

Thousands more, for elves and Maiar who come to them and ask. If the Valar do not approve, they do not say so. They do not say anything to Findis and Faniel, even when they march to Valinar beside their brother and see their mother and uncle for the first time in years as arrangements are made for who will leave and who will stay. 

The ships leave.

Findis and Faniel wait. 


End file.
